Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Arts & Music

26

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Arshile Gorky

Vosdanig Manoug Adoian

Armenia

1904 – 1948 (44 years old)

Armenian-American painter whose lyrical biomorphic abstractions and fluid, calligraphic draughtsmanship formed the critical bridge between European Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism.

Sherman, United States

26 Full Record →

Arts & Music

28

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Manuel Ponce

Manuel María Ponce Cuéllar

Mexico

1882 – 1948 (65 years old)

Mexican composer and pianist revered as the father of Mexican musical nationalism, world-famous for the romantic song Estrellita and his guitar masterworks composed for Andres Segovia.

Mexico City, Mexico

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Arts & Music

28

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Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters

Germany

1887 – 1948 (60 years old)

German avant-garde polymath who created 'Merz'—a total art philosophy utilizing street detritus, ticket stubs, and discarded refuse to construct visionary collages and walk-in architectural installations.

Kendal, United Kingdom

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Arts & Music

30

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Victor Horta

Victor Pierre Ghislain Horta

Belgium

1861 – 1947 (86 years old)

Belgian architect who pioneered Art Nouveau, famed for his revolutionary ironwork, whiplash curves, open spatial floorplans, and luminous glass skylights in Brussels.

Brussels, Belgium

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Arts & Music

27

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Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard

France

1867 – 1947 (79 years old)

French Post-Impressionist painter and founding member of Les Nabis whose dazzling, sun-soaked color harmonies and intimate bathroom scenes of his wife Marthe revolutionized modern colorism.

Le Cannet, France

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Arts & Music

9

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Aissa Djermouni

عيسى الجرموني

Algeria

1886 – 1946 (60 years old)

Legendary Chaoui folk poet and vocalist from the Aurès mountains who became the first African artist to headline the prestigious Olympia theater in Paris in 1937.

Aïn Beïda, Algeria

9 Full Record →

Arts & Music

31

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László Moholy-Nagy

László Weisz

Hungary

1895 – 1946 (51 years old)

Hungarian painter, photographer, typographer, and Bauhaus master who revolutionized kinetic light art, photograms, and founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago.

Chicago, United States

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Arts & Music

0

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Franklin Carmichael

Franklin Carmichael

Canada

1890 – 1945 (55 years old)

Youngest founding member of the Group of Seven who elevated watercolor to monumental status in Canadian art, painting panoramic vistas of the La Cloche mountains and Lake Superior.

Orillia (Ontario), Canada

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Arts & Music

36

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Béla Viktor János Bartók

Bartók Béla

Hungary

25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945 (64 years old)

Visionary Hungarian composer and ethnomusicology pioneer who recorded thousands of genuine Eastern European and Turkish folk melodies, integrating their asymmetrical meters and modal scales into revolutionary works like the Concerto for Orchestra.

New York City, United States

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Arts & Music

0

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Emily Carr

Emily Carr

Canada

1871 – 1945 (73 years old)

Monumental West Coast painter and author who overcame decades of isolation to paint the towering totem poles and cedar rainforests of British Columbia, winning the Governor General's Award for Klee Wyck.

Victoria (British Columbia), Canada

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Arts & Music

2

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Lhaj Belaid

الحاج بلعيد

Morocco

c. 1875 – c. 1945 (~70 years old)

The founding patriarch and undisputed master of modern Amazigh (Soussi) poetry and music, whose virtuosity on the single-stringed ribab and philosophical Tamazight verses transformed Moroccan folk culture.

Tiznit, Morocco

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Arts & Music

32

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Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky

Василий Васильевич Кандинский

Russia

16 December 1866 – 13 December 1944 (77 years old)

Visionary Russian painter and Bauhaus master universally recognized as the pioneer of pure non-objective abstract art, who linked visual color and geometry to musical synesthesia in his landmark treatise Concerning the Spiritual in Art.

Neuilly-sur-Seine (Paris), France

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Arts & Music

9

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Rachid Ksentini

رشيد قسنطيني

Algeria

1887 – 1944 (56 years old)

Trailblazing pioneer of Algerian musical comedy and chansonnier who composed over 600 satirical songs in Algerian Darija, performing across the Maghreb and Europe.

Algiers, Algeria

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Arts & Music

26

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Asmahan

أسمهان (آمال الأطرش)

Syria

1912 – 1944 (31 years old)

Legendary Syrian-Egyptian singer and actress, sister of Farid al-Atrash, whose soaring, operatic vocal range and glamorous cinema roles made her one of the supreme divas of the Arab Golden Age before her mysterious death at age thirty-one.

Cairo, Egypt

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Arts & Music

1,291

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Piet Mondrian

Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan

Netherlands

1872 – 1944 (71 years old)

Dutch pioneer of 20th-century abstract art and co-founder of De Stijl, celebrated for his geometric Neoplastic grids.

Brooklyn, New York, United States

1,291 Full Record →

Arts & Music

32

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Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch

Norway

12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944 (80 years old)

Norwegian master painter and printmaker whose psychological series The Frieze of Life—anchored by the immortal, harrowing icon The Scream (1893)—expressed modern humanity's existential dread, alienation, and raw psychological trauma.

Ekely (Oslo), Norway

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Arts & Music

30

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Fats Waller

Thomas Wright Waller

United States

1904 – 1943 (39 years old)

American jazz pianist, organist, and entertainer who perfected Harlem stride piano and composed enduring American standards including 'Ain't Misbehavin'' and 'Honeysuckle Rose'.

Kansas City, United States

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Arts & Music

29

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Maurice Denis

Maurice Denis

France

1870 – 1943 (72 years old)

Theoretician of Les Nabis whose 1890 definition of a painting ('a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order') became the foundation of 20th-century abstract art theory.

Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France

29 Full Record →